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VALE OF SHADOWS 

AND OTHER VERSES OF 
THE GREAT WAR 




BY 
CLINTON SCOLLARD 




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THE VALE OF SHADOWS 



BOOKS BY 
MR. CLINTON SCOLLARD 

Songs of a Syrian Lover. 4s. net 
ELKIN MATHEWS. London 

The Lyric Bough. $1.00 net 
Voices and Visions. $1 .00 net 

SHERMAN. FRENCH & CO, 

Poems. $1.25 net 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



THE 

VALE OF SHADOWS 

AND OTHER VERSES OF 
THE GREAT WAR 



BY 
CLINTON SCOLLARD 




NEW YORK 

LAURENCE J. GOMME 
1915 



Copyright, 191 5 ^ by Clinton ScoUard A^ 



It is the purpose of the publisher 
and author of this volume to donate 
whatever profits may accrue from 
it to the Belgian Relief Fund. 



JUL 13 1915 

©CI..A 401753 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Vale of Shadows 7 

Prayer in Time of Conflict . . . .10 

The Carnival 11 

The Watcher by the Tower .... 12 

The Night Sowers 13 

The Madonna of Termonde 14 

LOUVAIN .15 

At Epernay 17 

The Vintage 18 

Harvest 19 

Luther 20 

In the Night 21 

Sunset Trees . . 22 

In France 23 

In the Pale Watches of the Moon ... 24 

The Expiation 25 

At Rheims 26 

After Rheims 28 

Wine for the King 29 

Can It Be? 30 

Night in the Trenches . . . . .31 

The Tides of Yser 32 

Mother and Son 33 

What Tidings? . 34 

The War of Kings 35 

The Bells of Termonde 36 

The Winds of God 37 

5 



PAGB 

At the Golden Horn 



38 

Perseus 39 

Bravery . 



40 

Victories ••...... 41 



THE VALE OF SHADOWS 

There is a vale in the Flemish land, 

A vale once fair to see, 
"Where under the sweep of the sky's wide arch, 
Though winter freeze or summer parch. 
The stately poplars march and march, 

Kemembering Lombardy. 

Here are men of the Saxon eyes. 

Men of the Saxon heart, 
Men of the fens and men of the Peak, 
Men of the Kentish meadows sleek, 
Men of the Cornwall cove and creek. 

Men of the Dove and Dart. 

Here are men of the kilted clans 

From the heathery slopes that lie 
Where the mists hang gray and the mists hang 

white. 
And the deep lochs brood 'neath the craggy 

height, 
And the curlews scream in the moonless night 
Over the hills of Skye. 

Here are men of the Celtic breed, 

Lads of the smile and tear. 
From where the loops of the Shannon flow, 
And the crosses gleam in the even-glow, 

7 



And the halls of Tara now are low, 
And Donegal cliffs are sheer. 

And never a word does one man speak, 

Each in his narrow bed. 
For this is the Vale of Long Eelease, 
This is the Vale of the Lasting Peace, 
Where wars, and the rumours of wars, shall 
cease. 

The valley of the dead. 

No more are they than the scattered scud, 

No more than broken reeds. 
No more than shards or shattered glass, 
Than dust blown down the winds that pass, 
Than trampled wefts of pampas-grass 

When the wild herd stampedes. 

In the dusk of death they laid them down 

With naught of murmuring, 
And laughter rings through the House of Mirth 
To hear the vaunt of the high of birth. 
For what are all the kings of earth 

Before the one great King! 

And what shall these proud war-lords say 

At foot of His mighty throne ? 
For there shall dawn a reckoning day, 
Or soon or late, come as it may, 

8 



When those who gave the sign to slay 
Shall meet His face alone. 

What, think ye, will their penance be 

AVho have wrought this monstrous crime? 

What shall whiten their blood-red hands 

Of the stains of riven and ravished lands ? 

How shall they answer God's stern commands 
At the last assize of Time? 

For though we worship no vengeance-god 

Of madness and of ire, 
No Presence grim, with a heart of stone, 
Shall they not somehow yet atone ? 
Shall they not reap as they have sown 

Of fury and of fire? 

There is a vale in the Flemish land 
Where the lengthening shadows spread 

When day, with crimson sandals shod, 

Goes home athwart the mounds of sod 

That cry in silence up to God 
From the valley of the dead ! 



PRAYEE IN TIME OF CONFLICT 

O thou Invisible Power, 
Name some anointed hour 

When strife shall cease and peace again shall 
flower ! 

Thy sun and stars behold 

Miseries manifold, 

Terror and anguish that may not be told ; 

Lands severed by the sword, 

Blood as red wine outpoured 

Before Thy temples, hallowed and adored. 

And hark !— upon the air 

The burden of despair! 

Mothers and children — fold them in Thy care ! 

Omnipotent, befriend! 

Shelter, protect, forefend. 

And bid this reign of hate and horror end! 



10 



THE CARNIVAL 

Oh, the autumn-tide is the carnival tide, 

And what shall the carnival wear? 
Shall it be the blue of the haze-hung skies 
That is blent with gold and with topaz dyes? 
Shall it be the pied soft green that lies 
On the meadow slope and the mountain side, 
Shimmering far and fair? 

Nay, none of these for the carnival tide, 

For red is the carnival wear! 
And never a redder carnival shone 
Than now where the San and the Aisne flow on 
In the red of the eve, in the red of the dawn. 
And the war-fires rule and the thunders ride 

Under the autumn air ! 

Of what avail is this carnival tide, 

This blood-red carnival wear. 
These carnival lines that rock and reel 
And eddy and sally and meet and wheel 
And break like a surge on a shore of steel? 
Aye, what, when the doom-led men have died, 

Does the King of the carnival care? 



11 



THE WATCHER BY THE TOWER 

Upon a far land 's borders, 
At dawn and sunset hour, 

There stands a silent Watcher, 
The Watcher by the Tower ! 

The moments glide like ripples 

Upon a summer rill; 
Unchallenging, unchanging. 

He keeps his vigil still. 

The serried lines of armies 
Sweep on, a mighty span; 

They do not see the Watcher, 
And yet he marks each man. 

The blaring of the bugle, 
The daring of the flute, 

He knows upon what morrow 
Their music will be mute. 

The streaming of the guidons, 
The gleaming of the guns. 

Within his hand he holds them 
As God His flaming suns. 

Who is the grisly warder 
With this supernal power? 

Death is the silent Watcher, 
The Watcher by the Tower! 
12 



THE NIGHT SOWERS 

(fRx\nce) 

Lo, these are they that toil by night 
With mattock and with spade, 

'Neath the faint flickering lanthorn light, 
In meadow and in glade! 

Row upon long and crowded row, 

How grnesome is the seed they sow! 

Back on the fair and furrowed lands 

The earth and sod they toss. 
And some, with reverential hands, 

Place here and there a cross, 
A simple rough-hewn cross as though 
To sanctify the seed they sow. 

Oh, may some flower of love arise 

Above the bruised sod, 
Some flower of love to greet the eyes, 

The grieving eyes of God ! 
Some flower of love whereon shall fall 
The dews of peace perennial! 



13 



THE MADONNA OF TERMONDE 

Within a convent in Termonde 

An image of the Virgin stands 

Serene, with half uplifted hands 

And eyes that seem to look beyond 

The mutability of things; 

Around, war's ruthless ravagings, 

The shattered roof, the crumbling wall, 

Are like a sacrilege malign. 

And yet some power— was it divine ? — 

Impalpable, impending there, 

Has spared the image and the shrine 

That cast a glamour over all 

And bid the soul to bow in prayer. 

A miracle, so some would say ; 
An omen. Be this as it may ! 
The sweet Madonna face inspires 
The thought. Above the conflict fires, 
The hates, the base desires that sway 
The heart of man, God watches still, 
And works toward that diviner day 
"When good shall triumph over ill. 



14 



LOUVAIN 

From Mont Cesar you might view the town, 

TJioi, ah, that was but yesterday! 

Rich in romance and old renown, 

Fair in the light of the Flemish day. 

Hither once came a lord of Rome, 

Raised him ramparts and reared him a home; 

Below Saint Pierre and Saint Michel, 

And the stately Hotel de Ville as well, 

With their pointed windows and balustrades, 

Their gables and turrets and open spires, 

Took the gleam of the sunset fires 

And the tender, tremulous twilight shades. 

And the splendor of morn and noon's golden 

stain. 
How lovely to view, Louvain, Louvain! 

Here you might see the Dyle glide by, 
That, ah, that was hut yesterday! 
Mirroring towers and the houses high, 
Fair in the light of the Flemish day. 
Here you might feel, in the Rue Namur, 
Learning's spirit, of art the lure; 
Here you list, like a silvery shower, 
The spell of chimes at the quarter hour ; 
Here you might dream of the far gone days. 
And the sturdy weavers, with warlike ways; 

15 



Of French, Burgundians, Spaniards, — all 
That threatened the town with their tyrant 

thrall ; 
Of counts and dukes with their pompous train, 
And thine olden glory, Louvain, Louvain! 

How are the glow and glamour gone! 
Tliaty ah, that was but yesterday! 
What a woeful sight to look upon 
Under the light of the Flemish day! 
Down the ages the cry of shame 
Will ring, and the naming of a name. 
Scars irreparable, — ghastly scars, — 
The roar of guns, and the soar of flame 
Dimming the sun and blurring the stars, 
'Twas thus that the later Vandals came, 
Sacked and slew, in their vengeful ire, 
And gloried over the glutted pyre. 
And never the years can efface the stain 
Of thy ruthless doom, Louvain, Louvain! 



16 



AT EPERNAY 

At Epernay, when twilight fell, 
The sky was like a crimson flower, 

And the faint music of a bell 

Down drifted from a lonely tower. 

Against the wonder of the west 

A line of poplars, gaunt and thinned, 

Moved, as it seemed, in sad unrest, 
And took the burden of the wind. 

At Epernay, when closed the night. 
There was no peaceful slumber-swoon, 

For fires went up with lurid light. 

And dimmed the glamour of the moon. 

Strange fagots these that fed the flames. 
The bodies of the maimed and lost; 

And who shall ever know the names 
Of those that swelled the holocaust! 

For hours the tramp of serried hosts 
Was heard beneath the sky's wide arch, 

And grim the gathering of ghosts 
Who joined in that nocturnal march ! 

And then the morn, the morn at last, 

A pallid eremite in gray, 
With eyes distended and aghast 

Above the pyres at Epernay! 

17 



THE VINTAGE 

Eumours of ravaging war perturb the mind, 
Euffling the channels of our wonted ease ; 
Within the sky we read red auguries, 

And hear grim portents shivering down the 
wind. 

Not as aforetime do we fondly find 
Orchestral notes or lulling harmonies 
In the long plunge and murmur of the seas, 

But discords horrent unto all mankind! 

The fields of France are bright with poppy 
flowers ; 
Along the terraced, vineyards by the Khine 
The ripening grapes are crimsoning for the 

wine ; 
Beneath the sun what fairer sight to see! 
But ere the march of many hastening hours, 
"What will the bloom, what will the vintage 
be? 



18 



HARVEST 

The golden harvest-tide has gone, 

The harvest season, bland and blithe, 

But in the dusk and in the dawn 

The mower Death still whets his scythe. 

Since yet for him, yea, yet for him 
Are many widespread fields to reap, 

And he will store his harvest grim 
In the eternal House of Sleep ! 



19 



LUTHER 

Luther, the world has need of thee! 
Thy country needs thee at this hour 
To scourge its world-embattled power 

And stir to flame democracy. 

Aye, for the fervour of thy words 

Were more than guns, were more than swords! 

Couldst thou but speak as thou of old 
Didst, with thy stern admonishings, 
The dawn of far diviner things 

Might oome; the people might behold 

The fall of arrogance, the fall 

Of that which holds fair freedom thrall! 

Luther, the world has need of thee! 
Thy country needs thy voice to show 
"What pain, what wantonness, what woe 

Hate works, and greed and jealousy. 

Thy voice ! — for then might topple down 

Sceptre and prince and king and crown! 



20 



IN THE NIGHT 

Sometimes grim horror grips me in the night 
"When I am fain of sleep, when I am fain 
Of surcease from the thought of woe and pain 

Where fields once fair are stricken with the 
blight 

And whelm of battle ; then across my sight 
Pale phantoms march, a melancholy train, 
The unhouselled ghosts of the unnumbered 
slain 

That mark Mars' mad and holocaustal rite. 

W^hat will the end be ? Can no puissant power, 
Man's dream and hope from some dim elder 

day, 
With hand compassionate, exorcize the spell? 
Or have w^e fallen on that awful hour 
When hosts satanic, in their dire array. 
Menace the world from out the yawn of 
hell? 



21 



SUNSET TREES 

I see the sunset trees, line upon line on the sky; 
I see the sunset trees, and they seem to be 

marching by; - 
I see the sunset trees, and I mind me of armed 

men. 
Men who will fade in the dusk, and will never 

come again. 

I see the sunset trees, supple and strong and 

straight ; 
I see the sunset trees, like souls on the verge of 

fate ; 
I see the sunset trees, then darkness swallows 

them quite. 
And I mind me of marching men lost in the 

battle-night. 



22 



IN FRANCE 

(1914) 

'*Is it well with Henri and Jean and Paul?'' 
An old bent man to a mother said, 

As they met at morn by a little stall 

Where the baker sold them their loaves of 
bread. 

**Is it well with Henri and Jean and Paul?" 
And the mother bowed as beneath a rod; 

Then she answered, **Aye, it is well with them 
all, 
Well with them all — they are all with God!'' 



23 



IN THE PALE WATCHES OF THE MOON 

Last night, in the pale watches of the moon, 
While round the rising orb a halo hung, 
I heard the far off muttering of the storm, 
Grim detonations from behind the hills. 
Then clouds usurped the zenith, grisly shapes 
Black and portentous, where from tongues of 

flame 
Leaped forth and lashed the sky. And lo, it 

seemed 
As though earth shuddered, and a creeping 

wind 
Bore cries of terror, prophecies of doom, 
The horror following in the wake of War! 



24 



THE EXPIATION 

Mars, the insatiate, sanguine deity. 

The flame is on his altar- fanes once more! 
And spectral Death stands waiting at the door 

Where women sit alone in misery. 

The patient land and the long weary sea 
Shiver expectant, while the rage and roar 
Of combat deepen, and the mountains hoar 

Watch what the awful holocaust may be. 

But over all the dreadful battle-din. 

Loosed as it were from out the mouth of Hell, 
The shock, the thunder-boom, the wails, the 

groans. 
Another sound may rise — who can foretell? 
But will that expiate this slaughter-sin. 

The cries of kings upon their crumbling 
thrones ? 



25 



AT RHEIMS 

I can recall one autumn day in Rheims 

When the pervasive peace of the old town 

"Was as a benediction. All the air 

Was peopled with the imminence of dreams, 

Rapt visions of renown, 

Of Clovis, and the fair and fabled dove 

That from the immaterial realms above 

The sacred vial bore 

With oil to consecrate the brows of kings ; 

Of Louis Debonair, 

And of Joan, the sainted maid, who wore 

The searing crown of fire. 

And from her sacrificial pyre 

Passed to that rest beyond life's anguishings. 

The twin cathedral towers 

In the impending azure like great fiowers, 

Miraculously fashioned, seemed to show; 

And the great window o'er the Virgin's portal 

Was as a rose immortal 

Shaming the sunset glow. 

And now another autumn day in Rheims, 
But not of visual glory, not of dreams! 
Rather of horror and descending doom, 
War's hideous blight upon the perfect bloom 
Of art and beauty, sacrilege and shame. 
And all through one invoking God 's high name ! 

26 



As the swift years recede, 
All lovers of the loveliest things of earth 
That through the handiwork of man have birth 
Shall execrate the deed! 



27 



AFTEE EHEIMS 

Sovereign and militant lord of those that stain 
Forevermore this age with wantonness, 
Who from the gyves that held them in duress, 

Unloosed the Furies with their bloody train, 

After the ruthless crime of red Louvain, — 
The ravage and the ruin pitiless, — 
Now must you wreak your execrable excess 

Upon art's loveliest, art's fairest fane! 

Until the sands of time have ceased to run, 
Go down the years with Attila the Hun, 

Who cast o'er Christendom his sanguine spell! 
He was God's scourge on cowed humanity; 
You are God's servant — oh, rare irony!— 

You call on Heaven; rather call on Hell! 



28 



WINE FOR THE KING 

What is the word of the wind? The word of 
the wind is War! — 

All of the olden horror ! Moloch and Mars and 
Thor, 

These supreme and sole, with Peace but a tram- 
pled thing; 

Rapine and lust and famine, and blood for the 
wine of the King! 

Tears may gather and fall through all of the 

stricken lands ; 
The kine may brood in the stall, the harvest rot 

where it stands ; 
The cup may be brimmed with gall, with the 

sweat of suffering. 
For others — and yet, and yet, there must be 

wine for the King! 

What of the awful cost? What of the price to 
pay? 

What of the loved and lost upon many a san- 
guine day? 

What of the bells that toll?— Hark, how the 
echoes ring! 

Naught ! for there must be wine — red, red wine 
for the King! 



29 



CAN IT BE? 

Down my mind 's corridors 

Go murmuring the memories of old wars ; 

By day and night they haunt me^ anguished 

cries 
From fields whence only the lark's song should 

rise, 
Or the blithe reaper's shout amidst the grain. 
And now there comes a grimmer, greater pain 
Voicing its suffering. O God, what gain 
In all this woe of nations ? Can it be 
Through the dark valley that mankind shall win 
From lust of power and jealousy and sin 
To heights of peace and perfect amity? 



30 



NIGHT IN THE TRENCHES 

The moon above the trenches shone 
Like a grim beldam, wizened, wan ; 
It leered and jeered till some one swore 
In jets of ribald metaphor. 

Silence, and then a song, and then 
The ghastly quietude again. 
Pierced by the shrieking of a shell 
Like a lost soul cast down to hell. 

And so till dawn began to creep 
Across the land, when soothing sleep 
About its hallowed influence shed 
And none could tell the quick or dead. 



31 



THE TIDES OF YSER 

The tides of Yser crawl and creep ; 

The tides of Yser creep and crawl, 
And be they shallow, be they deep, 

Death is the deepest bacchanal! 

He laughs the while his cup he drains 
(Hymning the song of old he hymned!) 

From Yser tide, with crimson stains, 
From Yser tide, with crimson brimmed ! 



32 



MOTHER AND SON 

''0 little son, little son, why sob you in af- 
fright? 
What hear you in the night?" 

^'0 mother mine, O mother mine, I pray thee 
hold me tight ! 

I hear the roar of many guns. There is a 
dreadful sight!" 

'*0 little son, little son, there is no beam or 

gleam ; 
It must be but a dream ! ' ' 
''O mother mine, mother mine, I hear the 

bullets scream. 
And dead men lie with staring eyes beside a 

swollen stream!" 

*'0 little son, little son, it may not — may not 

be, 
This awful agony!" 
' ^ mother mine, O mother mine, the vision will 

not flee; 
And, mother mine, among them there my 

father's face I see!" 



33 



WHAT TIDINGS? 

What tidings, winds of springtide, do ye bear? — . 
What from the slopes of castle-guarded 

Ehine? 
What from the ancient shrine of Constan- 
tine. 
And from the fertile Flemish fields and fair? 
What word from where the Russian steppes lie 
bare 
Beneath a shrouded sun? What speech is 

thine 
From England, girdled by the gray sea-brine, 
And France the dauntless and the debonair? 

What message from the Danube? Plangent 
tunes 
Have ye aforetime borne across the seas, — 
The hates and horrors of the bygone years, — 
But never frantic discords, frenzied runes 
Of murder and of madness such as these,— 
The Furies mocking at God's singing 
spheres ! 



34 



THE WAR OF KINGS 

From dawn to dusk reign horror and affright, 
And the sad night no healing respite brings; 

In all its hideous panoply of might, 
This is the war of kings! 

The people are but pawns upon the board; 
What of their wants, their woes, their suffer- 
ings? 
Speak, Death, dark watcher both by field and 
ford, 
In this grim war of kings! 

Will history still repeat the sanguine past. 
With all its trail of ruthless anguishings? 

Oh, may this slaughter-carnival be the last — 
The last dread war of kings! 



35 



THE BELLS OF TEEMONDE 

Bells of Termonde, chimes that have rung so 
long, 

Filling the Flemish air 

With mellow call to prayer, 
Hushed now your matin and your vesper song; 

Silence about you, — silence and despair! 

Yet Hope bids lift the veil, and hear beyond 

The stillness brooding deep 

As the vast seas of sleep 
Your melody, fair bells of Termonde, 

Across the fields where men shall sow and 
reap ! 

For o'er the land there shall dawn brighter 
days, 

Your fertile land and fond. 

And hearts shall yet respond 
To your rapt music, your harmonious lays, 

O silent bells, sweet bells of Termonde! 



36 



THE WINDS OP GOD 

Across the azure spaces, 

Athwart the vasts of sky, 
With winnowings of mighty wings 

The winds of God go by. 

Above the meres and mountains. 

With unseen sandals shod, 
Above the plains, with choric strains, 

Sweep by the winds of God. 

*' Peace! — in His name!'' they murmur; 

'* Peace— in His name!" they cry — 
Oh, men, give ear! Do ye not hear 

The winds of God go by ? 



37 



AT THE GOLDEN HORN 

The sunrise cry from many minarets 
Floats down the vernal morning, clear and 
cool ; 
From Asian shores a bland breeze westward 
sets, 
And stirs the almond trees of IstambouL 

As on the mosques the first rays slantwise shine, 
And golden glory floods the gloomy gray, 

The city of imperial Constantine 
Uplifts her weary lids to greet the day. 

The torpor of decay upon her lies; 

Her heart is palsied though her face be fair, 
Though still majestic to the cloudless skies 

Aya Sofia rears its dome in the air. 

What though the fitful glow of life seem warm. 
There broods a fatal apathy o'er all; — 

It is the hush that bodes the breaking storm. 
The calm that comes before the final fall ! 



38 



PERSEUS 

The old Medusa War, of grim array, 

Lo, we had deemed the ^isly horror dead! 

May there arise some Perseus Peace to slay 
This new Medusa of the gorgon head! 



39 



BRAVERY 

Valiant the men who march in swinging lines 
And at the mouths of cannon face their fate ; 

But no less radiantly the courage shines 

Of those who bide behind and watch — and 
wait ! 



4a 



VICTOEIES 

Strife strides o'er alien lands with deafening 
roar, 

And, as we list, the fearsome sounds increase ; 
May all our triumphs be, from shore to shore, 

The victories of Peace! 



41 



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